Emerging security challenges call for cooperation in Asia Pacific: defense chiefs

SINGAPORE (Xinhua) -- The emerging security challenges, especially non-traditional challenges such as those in maritime security and the cyber space, call for new approaches to global governance, defense ministers and senior military commanders at an Asian security summit said.

"Our common security challenges are often transnational and as we have witnessed can overwhelm resources episodically," Singapore's Defense Minister Ng Eng Hen said on Sunday towards the closing of the Shangri-La Dialogue, or Asian Security Summit, a multilateral security forum organized by the London-based think tank International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS).

"No single country has the resources or ability to provide lasting solutions. We will have to pool resources and synergize efforts," he said, citing emerging challenges such as humanitarian assistance, disaster relief, maritime security and counterterrorism, among others.

He cited the example of Singapore navy's Information Fusion Center, a system that allows many countries worldwide to share their information and provides a common maritime picture for users to identify anomalies and potential threats.

"This generation is witnessing significant change in the global order and the new security challenges that come with it," said the Singapore defense minister.

The three-day Shangri-La Dialogue gathered defense ministers, senior defense officials, military commanders and scholars from at least 27 countries in the region and beyond. The participants hold discussions at the forum, and conduct diplomacy on the sidelines of the meeting.

Many of the defense ministers, including Malaysian Defense Minister Ahmad Zahid Hamidi, highlighted the emerging security challenges in cyber space, while others talked about how the asymmetric threats posed by criminal networks, pirates and terrorist organizations can undermine the social and economic vibrancy of a society.

"While regional and inter-state rivalries persist in many places around the world, the most pervasive and worrying threats now come from non-state entities and non-traditional security challenges," said Peter Gordon MacKay, Canadian Minister of National Defense.

The rapid development and expansion of space and cyber-based technologies have created entirely new dynamics. The added reach, flexibility and speed of satellite and cyber systems are powerful enablers and have become integral to our lives, he said.

"Our understanding -- and access to -- global dynamics in real time is one of the extraordinary achievements of our age. This helps break down barriers, reach across vast distances, and connects peoples and multi-national efforts to the benefit of all," he said, citing the coordinated international response to the 2004 Asian tsunami, the 2010 Haitian earthquake, and the more recent earthquake and tsunami in Japan.

Not only the defense minister from the region are engaging each other to improve their communication, the ministers from countries beyond the Asia Pacific also said at the forum that they are linked to the region.

French Defense Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian said that the Asia Pacific region is integral part of the safety environment for the French and European people.

"Anything that contributes to increasing safety in Asia-Pacific is beneficial to world stability, since this region carries weight in the world's business, and will carry even more weight in the future," he said.

US Defense Secretary Leon Panetta also said earlier at the forum that the United States seeks to strengthen its strategic trust with China in handling one of the most important relationships in the world.

"Our aim is to continue to improve the strategic trust that we must have between our two countries, and to discuss common approaches to dealing with shared security challenges," he said.

Lieutenant General Ren Haiquan, who headed the Chinese delegation to the forum, said the South China Sea disputes failed to make headlines at the dialogue because it is more of a priority for the countries in the region to boost their cooperation in fields such as trade and economy for mutual benefit.

"I think the dominant theme at the Shangri-La Dialogue is dialogue and cooperation for Asia Pacific security," he added.-The Philippine Star (June 03, 2012)